The Great Big Lie

Now I’m not one to spread conspiracy theories, but I just can’t get over the feeling that the people of the USA are being lied too. And its not just by the administration this time, its by a wide body of industrialists, economists, politicians and even scientists working in concert to keep the truth from us. It was not until recent developments in the European Union that I put two-and-two together to realize that we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes for so long. Of course, the reason is somewhat obvious. It’s all about the almighty dollar, isn’t it? And its all about the oil. That’s right, oil. It’s not hard to imagine that mountains of barrels of crude are at the center of another international scandal.

You see, I feel that I’ve done my civic duty over the years, reducing my consumption of limited resources, especially cutting back on overuse of fossil fuels. I bought into the whole idea that conservation is good for the planet and that our leaders were diligently working on ways to solve the problem once and for all. I thought we were making progress with all the new car designs, the gas-electric engines and what-not. Heck, I even purchased a hybrid Honda model that purported to achieve 50+ miles per gallon, and while my actual experience has not been so rosy I had been rather pleased with the results until just yesterday when I learned the truth, that we were being lied to, that none the feeble attempts that I thought to be so brilliant where in fact making much difference at all.

The fact is, there is already technology that so dramatically outshines anything our industries have been able to achieve in the last few decades, it makes you wonder if our government had actually known about it all along and has been criminally negligent for not telling us about it, covering it up in some James Bond style master scheme to keep the public unaware, not allowing us to freely choose to switch to this incredible alternative, forcing us to maintain the status quo and keep the oil corporations fat with profit.

As proven just this last week, it is entirely possible and feasible to construct an engine that excels beyond anything we’ve known before. It is so quantifiably superior as to achieve fuel efficiency at many orders of magnitude greater that anything that has even been allowed to hit the road.

“It works out to something like 1.24 million miles per quarter gallon, which is quite an achievement,” Bonacina said.

According to NASA it takes 2500 watts to produce 1/50th of a pound of thrust. While there are too many factors involved in deducing an equivalent ratio of thrust to horsepower the number is generally accepted to be 1 pound of thrust to generate 1.5-3hp.

Take a low end fuel efficient vehicle like a Honda Civic around 120hp and be generous on the thrust and you get a number like 40 pounds. It would take 2000 of these ion propulsion engines each at 2500 watts, that amounts to 5 megawatts which is the total amount of some small power facilities. This is beyond the fact that producing a engine of this sort is VERY expensive.

I know that there are all kinds of physical factors that differentiate thrust based propulsion versus typical energy producing combustion engines but we are still way out of the realm of practical with this. It may work in the frictionless environment of space but not in the streets of your average city.

Why is this post dripping with stupidity? Well, we thought computer running as fast as the ones we have today was going to be possible 50 years ago? Think about it. This world has the brain power to accomplish things that are better for our planet earth, but they just don’t do it because they lose money!

The stupidity is in comparing technologies based on a measurement such as "miles per gallon". MPG measurements do not even accurately describe the abilities of a standard combustion engine, let alone the differences between two different engine technologies. For example, two different models of Ford cars with the exact same engine can get different MPG ratings. This is not due to the engine itself but to the design of the rest of the car (one car might be much heavier for example). Also, miles in space are much different than miles on earth. This makes any comparison based on MPG completely bogus.

Additionally, the title of this blog was "The Great Big Lie". This implies that the technology used in automobiles is not only inferior to ion technology, but that the scientific community knows this and that they are somehow "holding back" better technology on purpose.

No one is disputing the fact that ion technology holds promise. It is indeed a very cool idea. I am sure that 50 years from now we will be amazed at how much progress has been made. However, there is no "big lie" here. Ion technology may be ready for space travel but not for the morning commute. That may be different in 50 years…

Whoa, whoa, whoa.. guys.. take a minute to catch your collective breaths. The post was very much in jest. I took a quote out of context and built up a silly tirade around it because I though the misapplication of it was generally humorous. Note that the title of the post is ‘The Great Big Lie’ because the post itself is a lie. It is catalogized under the title ‘lunacy’ and is a post on a blog site subtitled ‘Oh what a tangled web…’ Finish that quote and you’ll be ready to embrace the fun.

I think that there is a conspiracy and it’s surrounding the big oil companies. I read in one of the auto magazines when I was into the whole performance thing and there is an alternate fuel. It’s alcohol. I don’t remember exactly but I vaguely remember it being easy to mass produce at a very low cost – it comes from corn!, which we have lots of! And the thing is also environment-friendly since it breaks down to water and some non-toxic gas (I hated chemistry and I still do, so don’t ask me for names). And I read that some parts of California are already using it and the racing industry as well. The only thing is I believe it is still used as a gasoline/alcohol mixture and I don’t know whether it’s because we don’t have the technology to make a pure alcohol engine or that there indeed is a conspiracy to shield the oil industry.

With the gas price these days, I really wouldn’t mind an alternative fuel at all.

I’ve heard the current oil reserves (that we know about should last us until about 2040-2050, given all the current (accelerating) demand for oil/energy.

Additionally, as these oil reserves begin to dry up, demand will outpace supply and it will become more economical to begin to research the alterna-fuels, because the cost of research will mirror the cost of extraction.

And then there’s the random scientific breakthroughs that can happen both in favor of oil, and at the detriment of oil energy, so theres always that "random mutation" at present…

Its all very fascinating, if you take a step back and look at the whole picture.

Matt – I think you’re being a little overly optimistic… The article states ‘space’ MPG, not higway or city MPG. Assuming the non-stop nature of satellite space travel would map closely to highway travel, I’d bet that, like the experience with your Honda, real world results wouldn’t top 4 million miles/gallon.

Mark, I agree. I think you’d have to consider the greater quantity of spacial disturbances inside the planetary orbits than future outside. I think there is a correlation to be made there between the ‘urban’ planetary zone and the more ‘rural’ Oort cloud and the expanse between systems. I suspect that deep out in the void the ether is a bit thinner and the MPG would approach its optimal.

Sure, oil is a huge part of the all mighty dollar, but there is a lot more to it than that.

Q: Has anyone else noticed that since the U.S. invaded Iraq, the Treasury has not changed U.S. currency again? It is not very widely published that Saddam had produced "a lot" of U.S. currency in an attempt to destroy the U.S. economy. (I don’t know any actual estimate of the amount.)

Its the upheaval of the economy that scares away the powers that be from change.

I agree with you, it can be done. And it needs to be done. But it will only happen when the common folk unite to force it. Don’t expect those at the top of the heap to implement systems that make their own jobs obsolete, or their own wealth drop to nothing.